The Guardian
by Lhyrre
Summary: When Loki has a mysterious visitor in his incarceration, there is an uproar at SHIELD. As they try to find out exactly who has been communicating with the trickster God, they find evidence of a potential disaster. Could there be a much quieter invasion happening on Earth, right below the noses of the Avengers? Or is it something far worse... NO PLANNED PAIRINGS. NO SLASH.
1. Of Gods and Hedgehogs

Who needed to be forgiven?

Nights were never long on Asgard. They fell quickly, passed silently, and burst into glorious sunrise in the blink of an eye. But during the silver-tinted days, he was forced to live in a shadow. At night, the _world _was the shadow, and the puny creatures that needed light to fool each other into believing each other's' facades would sleep, hiding from the fact that in the darkness, none could conceal their darkest secrets.

Night passed too quickly, but never fast enough.

The second prince of Asgard passed his fingers over the pages of the book he was already tired of reading. The subject was interesting enough, but after the fourth time he could probably repeat it back to whoever wanted to listen. Not that they would. No one listened to him anymore.

He let out a sigh – he wasn't one to talk to himself to keep his thoughts in order. For all that was said about him, he honestly didn't really like the sound of his own voice. After all, compliments mean nothing when they come from your own lips…

In fact, his silence, his refusal to comply with anyone's orders – that was the reason he hadn't been able to leave yet. Until he was willing to renounce all his past actions, he was to be confined in his room… like a stubborn child. His lip curled into a condescending smirk. Did Odin think him still to be controlled like a rebellious adolescent?

He slowly descended into those thoughts, basking in the burning thoughts that mingled hatred and the joy of fooling someone into one bitter pill – for all it raised boils on his proverbial mental skin. So lost was he, that when a voice spoke, he nearly jumped eight feet in the air. Sadly, the ceiling wasn't quite that high, so he had to stop at six-and-a-half before he completely shattered the ceiling.

"Awfully fond of that book, aren't you?" came the voice again, from behind him.

Loki spun, automatically throwing up a guard over his previously open face. The mask was harder to maintain as he struggled with shock for a moment – the owner of the voice was lounging in _his_ favorite chair, with the book in his hand.

"Boring subject. You really read this stuff?" The man, light glistening off his spiky hair, tossed the book carelessly onto the table, and Loki silently disregarded him for the careless way his intruder would treat an ancient tome – for all that he could probably repeat it backwards.

"Yes, I do," Loki answered noncommittally, observing the man with sharp eyes. "Though you obviously do not appreciate knowledge enough to respect its... influence." He didn't let down the guard for a moment, though he did edge toward the window, relaxing enough to lean on the windowsill. "How did you get in here, human?"

For it was obvious that the man was human. The way he lounged back in the chair held none of the Asgardian stillness-to-contain-energy. His short, strawberry-blonde hair was spiked with gel. He was wearing the rather typical human clothing – jeans and a t-shirt. Silver, squarish glasses balanced on his nose made his watery blue eyes look unnaturally large behind the thick lenses.

And most of all, he was munching on a shiny plastic bag of some kind of Midgardian vegetable that he could only guess at.

"How'd you guess?" the man didn't smile though, for all he was laughing. "Don't answer that question."

Loki simply raised an eyebrow.

"So why haven't you called the guards yet? Or blasted me out the window, which wouldn't have been weird, for you. Your temper tantrum _trashed_ New York." The man popped another one of those… things into his mouth, and chewed quietly. At least he had manners.

"I don't think they'd be too inclined to help me at the moment," Loki remarked. "For very similar reasons as those which you have stated." His eyes, like a hawk's, focused in on the man's face. "Why are you here? Or, more succinctly, how did you come to Asgard?"

The man swallowed whatever it was he was eating, then turned over another in his long, pasty white fingers before popping it into his mouth. "I'm Trevor, thanks for asking. And I'm actually here to interview you! Kind of. I'm a journalist, or was, back on Earth. Or Midgard. Whatever you call it." His words started to fall over themselves a bit, as if he was struggling with figuring out what to say.

Loki made a herculean effort to keep the utter, complete disdain off of his face as he stared at the spiky-haired man eating cucumber in his favorite chair. Only humans would find out how to travel between worlds and then send a journalist across to conduct an interview.

"If looks could kill, I'd be dead right now," Trevor snapped, suddenly losing patience. Or was it courage that was lost? "I'm not here on behalf of the authority you're thinking of, so wipe that snobby look off your face. Journalist may be my job, but I'm here for more than that."

Idiotic bravado.

Loki seriously considered calling the guards for a quarter of a second before he grabbed the man by the neck of his t-shirt and slammed him against the wall, wrapping a hand around his neck and drawing the shorter man up to eye-level. "You will stop your insults and tell me your purpose, human. You are not worthy to dance circles around the likes of a go-" he managed to hiss before, to his surprise, he found himself flying across the room and slamming into the opposing wall of his bedchamber.

The other man had collapsed as well, but was already sitting up, rubbing his neck ruefully. "You… should see a… damn shrink," he coughed, eyeing the collapsed figure of Loki from across the room. "They were right, you do snap fast." He was talking far too quickly now, as if words were a crutch to get him out of any situation.

Loki sat up, rubbing his already-aching head. "You're an altered human as well? If so, I really don't have time for th-"

Trevor was already standing, and offered him a slightly trembling hand while impolitely cutting him off. "No, I'm not. An altered human. Don't even have powers. I've just got more capacity than some."

Loki looked at him as if he'd just spoken another language, then coldly got back up without the hand. "You have one more chance, mortal."

Trevor backpedaled. "Honestly, I came to scope you out. Kind of like a reporter, except where I'm from, it wouldn't get written down. All I can tell you is that there's more on Earth than SHIELD, and we're not so quick to believe that you were working alone in this whole mess. And, you know, since this is our planet at stake, we decided we'd try to ask you nicely who it was before trying the not-so-nice." He pointed to himself. "I'm nice, by the way. Not-so-nice will drive you up a wall."

Loki fantasized about stabbing the over-talkative hedgehog with his helmet before speaking. "I was kept from much knowledge, if that answers your question."

"Well, sorry if I don't completely believe you, but you are kind of known as the god of lies back home."

Loki tried to surge up out of the chair he'd settled in to thoroughly murder the man when he realized he couldn't stand up. He blinked in shock as he realized that his wrists and ankles were bound to the chair by some kind of freakish glowing vine of energy. "And you expect me to believe that you're human?" he asked condescendingly. "Tell me, did your chattering tongue come from birth, or is it to cover up the fact that this is the most frightening mission you've ever been on?" Loki's eyes met the other man's with a kind of unflinching intensity – as if he was mentally gutting and filleting him.

He watched the man suppress a shudder with satisfaction. He'd worked on that glare for a long time.

"Birth. I was born impudent," he said – too quickly.

Loki sighed. "As for your question, even if I did know, I would never tell you. For all your chatter and bravado, you simply want to cower in fear," he said, his voice growing lower. "So run away, child. And tell your masters that the God of Lies sends his regards…" he stopped, then quietly stood up. It had taken a lot of effort, prying through pure-energy bonds. But he'd been testing them while he'd been tearing apart Trevor's self-esteem, and they became weaker the more distracted Trevor got. He brushed past the now-terrified man, just a hair too close so that the edge of his clothing brushed against Trevor's arm.

Trevor was the one to jump this time, spinning around so he wouldn't have the god at his back.

Loki slowly bent over a piece of parchment and picked up a quill. A few words would suffice…

_To whom it may concern:_

_If you expect answers, don't send in the nursing babes. It's rather insulting._

_Loki, of Asgard_

He pressed his seal over the envelope, then slipped back over to the man, still trying to put up his indifference like a shield between him and Loki. "Hand this to your superiors, you sanguine coward." Loki treated the terrified man to his most winning smile. "I'll find out how you got here later… And I'm sure I'll see you again. Though I should tell you… " His smile became even wider as he stepped closer, "It may not be on such terms as might favor you, now that you have revealed your _petty_ gift."

Trevor jerked back, the indifference finally dropping as he clutched onto the plastic bag.

"Such cowardice does not befit a true man. Perhaps I should kill you anyway…" Loki lifted his hand, an illusion of a knife streaming into view –

In a totally unspectacular fizzle, Trevor swallowed the remains of his cucumber before fading in front of Loki's eyes - almost as if he were nothing more than a projection.

Loki allowed the dagger to disappear and sat back on his favorite chair, noting that the deep green leather now smelled uncomfortably of some human cologne.

Who was that man? A coward, obviously. An underling. Definitely a spy, a runner.

Where did he come from? Earth, yes. The man still stunk of the air that surrounds people that spend far too much time in an office.

Whatever organization this was, it hadn't been involved in fighting him, and it wasn't on the radar of any other human organization within his knowledge.

A small man with spiked hair who was normally a reporter.

Over-nervous, not used to combat situations.

Do they normally deal with planet-wide threats? Or threats of any kind, for that matter.

No.

An underground agency. Very underground. They probably didn't even have a name. In pieces, with a covert central authority that granted much autonomy to its branches. That would be the only way to stay off of SHIELD's radar… they were spectacularly bad at picking up scattered pieces of a larger threat.

The confusion on Loki's brow smoothed after he had puzzled the intentities out. They would ask questions soon, and he would give no answers. If played carefully enough, this could become a priceless advantage. He hadn't even searched for this situation; it had come to find him. But because he was Loki, God of Mischief, Tempter of Fate, it would work out in his favor. Let Asgard believe that he was playing the puppetmaster again, mysteriously, from his own prison. It would be marvelously entertaining.

Loki smirked, delicately picking up the dusty tome from the side table to flip through it absently. Perhaps his imprisonment would end sooner than he had expected…

_A/N: Hello boys and girls! So I'm an avid reader of fanfiction, but I usually don't write it. So please review, and tell me what you think! I desperately need critiques - I want to be as accurate as I can while maintaining character. So why did I write this? I got a dare. Loki's character seems to be inevitably pushed toward ultimate chaos, and a friend happened to mention that it seemed impossible to make him switch sides without completely destroying his character. I took the dare. =P So here it is. Tell me how I'm doing, and if I am succeeding at my purpose._


	2. In Which: Fury Gets a New Skylight

_A/N: Okay guys. This is where the REAL story begins. I'm sorry at the lack of planned pairings – that does NOT mean that there will not be romance in this story, but rather that IF it happens, I'd rather it be an organic result of my writing and not something I'm aiming towards. So be patient – the first domino has been pushed, so let's see where it leads, eh?_

It had been quiet for too long.

Nick Fury sat with a tense stillness in his office, flicking back and forth between screens on the tablet computer he barely seemed to tolerate dragging along with him. It was bad enough that he was stationed on the ground, for now – the Helicarrier had been undergoing massive repairs and renovations for months after the attack on New York. His one eye narrowed at the screen, not really seeing any of the emails he was half-heartedly flicking through.

Something was wrong. It had been wrong for a long time – before the Tesseract had thoroughly distracted him, before incoming alien invasions, and possibly even before his first dealings with Tony Stark, he had begun to notice something off. It wasn't something he could put his finger on – there was no one suspicious event that had alerted him. However, it was frustrating when he could feel the suspicion dangling just outside the realms of comprehension, teasing the edges of reasonability before dashing, laughing, beyond his understanding.

Even the situation in New York was puzzling. It was entirely shocking that there was no follow-up. Yes, the Chitari were on the other side of space, but their invasion had failed. He knew for a fact they'd sworn revenge on Loki, but there was no reason to doubt that they would want to punish the planet that had shamed them just as much as they would the god that had hoodwinked them. Why hadn't they returned?

During the attack – there were thousands of the aliens pouring out of the portal, and yet the only casualties reported were those surrounding the Avengers, as if they were closed in. The Chitauri were supposed to be an invasion, weren't they? To subjugate the human race. How had there been no other casualties outside of the perimeter that Rogers had set? There was evidence of destruction – a few mysterious cut-and-slice marks that were automatically attributed to rogue aliens. There was even evidence of intense fighting beyond the perimeter.

Fury pulled up the schematics of the battle again, frowning at the damage that extended far beyond the set-up perimeter. He'd asked all of the questions he could think of, but there weren't even close-up sightings of Chitauri in places were there should have, by _all rights_, been very obvious sightings. There were no bodies of the aliens to show that any of the townspeople had fought back.

If there had been even one, it would have made much more sense. But the evidence stood – the damage of a city-wide battle, but only footage and hard evidence of a single battle confined to a few blocks.

It wasn't simply the Chitauri either. His mind slid back to the ease that SHIELD had in containing the "incident" with Thor in New Mexico. It hadn't spiraled out of control in the news, and they hadn't even had their usual problem with over-curious onlookers. There were no desert versions of crop-circle stories or even UFO sightings, for all that giant streams of portal-light had come from the sky like lighting and left an alien language printed in the sand.

And again, and again – situations that should have spiraled far out of hand surprised him when they simply stayed in control.

It made no sense. Fury slammed the tablet down on the glass top of his gracefully curved desk, finally standing up with a frustrated curse. The suspicion that something was wrong hovered at the edge of his vision all the time now. Tension flooded his body with no outlet. No matter how intense his suspicions were, that didn't change the one fact that there was absolutely no evidence to substantiate his claims. Yes, it was odd, but SHIELD specialized in strange, didn't it? So why should things work out in a logical manner?

The logic didn't erase the hunch.

Then forget logic. Every bureaucratic and undercover avenue that he could follow under the label of SHIELD had already been attempted or ruled out. He would have to throw logic out the window.

Striding back over behind his desk, he pressed the button that alerted his secretary. "Davidson," he snapped, sounding irritable. "I need you to make a call. If Stark's in New York, call him. Or send Romanoff to kidnap him, if he won't answer his phone. I want him in my office in fifteen minutes, either on his own or hog-tied and gagged on the floor. There's something I want to discuss with him."

"Yes sir," came the slightly bored voice of his secretary. "Do I have a reason to give him, sir?" he asked.

"Tell him that I've got a puzzle for the resident genius." Fury flicked off the intercom with a snap and sat back in his chair to pick up the tablet again, flicking over information that he'd seen a hundred times by now.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. The information missing was right on the edge of his brain, right in the middle of the evidence, and if he could only look a little closer, then –

It came as a surprise, then, when an enormous crash sounded from the reception room of his office. Fury rocketed from his seat, automatically in motion. A gun pulled from what seemed to be nowhere was far too comfortable in his hand as the door to his office slammed open and he stood, leveling the unreasonably large gun about three inches past the traumatized blonde secretary's head at another blonde man, getting up from his landing-crouch position and swinging a hammer back into a less threatening position in his hand.

Fury took the scene in for a moment before lowering his gun, raising an eyebrow at the rubble. "Thor? What the hell are you doing back on Earth?" he asked bluntly, his tense irritation almost snapping at the unexpected interruption. He had been so close to realizing… something.

"I am to have words with you, Director Fury," said Thor, his deep voice ringing with a menace that grated on Fury's nerves. "It is of the utmost –"

Fury cut him off by flipping the long gun over his shoulder. "Come into my office; well, what's left of it, and we'll talk there. Your tone is telling me this is a _private_ conversation." He turned, his long, dark coat catching on the edges of the now dust-covered doorway.

Thor followed him into the office, his rage almost tangible in the wake of his destruction. "The imprisonment of my brother has been disturbed," he began, meeting Fury's eyes directly. He opened his mouth to speak again, before suddenly silencing at Fury's sardonic glare.

"Well, he probably deserved it. Why the hell are you here?" Fury asked, not to be deterred from his question. He slammed the gun down on the desk, cracking the glass layer coating the wood. There was a slight satisfaction at the destruction – it took the edge off of some of his frustration.

"There has been an _intruder_ in my brother's quarters, Director Fury," Thor said, the rage rising in his voice. His hammer unconsciously flipped up in his hand, into attack position. "And Loki refuses to reveal any details about the incident. He is still confined, but if he has begun to manipulate again, then there is no telling –"

"You're telling me that the nutcase that destroyed half of New York is on _house arrest_?" said Fury, anger gathering in his remaining eye as he stared the blonde warrior down. "He should have his godforsaken lips sewn together or something. That happened in one of those myth things, didn't it?"

Thor stared back, unrepentant and stiffening at the unpleasant memory. He did settle back a step after a moment, crossing his arms as he made his case. "The severity of the sentence is still undergoing review by the Allfather," he said, the passion in his voice rising as his brows descended thunderously over his eyes. "It is only natural that he should remain in confinement until a decision is reached about the proper… punishment for his actions." He brandished his hammer for a moment. "We waste too much time on this insignificant detail, Director Fury. You know the reason I have come."

Fury stared at him blankly, some of the anger dropping from his face as he inspected the warrior's eyes. "As far as I recall, _you_ were the one who dropped out of the sky and punched through the damned _ceiling_ and demanded to see me," he said sardonically, leaning back against the desk. "And why are you even here? Loki's not under our jurisdiction anymore. I thought you Asgardians would be able to handle this – being so _advanced_ and _mature_ and all."

Thor stopped completely, the hammer he had been brandishing about so energetically before dropping to his side. "Then you have no knowledge as to why I have requested your presence?" he asked, looking truly and completely confused for a moment. "But surely SHIELD was the organization that has contacted Loki," he said, vehemence returning as he stomped slightly closer to Fury, his blue eyes searching the other man's craggy face.

Fury leaned closer to Thor as well, incredulous anger flooding his face. "Say what?" he asked, his voice sharpening. "You know just as well as I do that we can't even get past the moon! How the hell did you expect us to get to Asgard?"

Frustration dashed across Thor's face – Fury snorted at the absolute open book the man was – as he dropped the hammer to the floor to grab Fury by the shoulder. "You have entirely missed the point, Director Fury," he said, clamping down on the man's shoulder as if the pressure and an increase in the intensity of eye contact would force him to understand. "In the past twenty-four hours, Heimdall witnessed a Midgardian mortal _pass between realms_ to pay a visit to Loki's chambers. Only SHIELD would have the knowledge for such –"

"Oh god, shield the children's eyes," came a liltingly mocking voice from the doorway, cutting Thor off with finesse. "Are you going to kiss now or are you going to save me from bleaching my brain later?" Tony Stark leaned against the doorway, his eyebrows nearly clearing his forehead as he witnessed the scene. "Because, despite the large amount of kinky fanfiction, this was the _last_ pairing I expected to go down." Tony flipped up his aviators, intelligent brown eyes dancing over the tense moment that he had effectively shattered.

Both men jerked back from their close proximity, dealing with the separately. "Is there anything you _need_, Stark?" Fury snapped, his long coat flaring out as he spun to safely retreat behind his desk.

"Well, you're the one who called me up here. You tell me!" Tony put his hands in the air, quirking an eyebrow. "And no one told me Lightning McQueen was in town. Or that he'd smashed through the ceiling in your secretary's office. That _was_ you, right?" he asked, suddenly turning his direction to the man on the other side of the desk. "And what was with Natasha dropping in on me from the roof? I had to bribe her with a year's worth of free MMA tickets to talk her out of untying me."

Thor picked up the hammer, still shifting uncomfortably at the opening comment. "Greetings, Tony. However, I am here on urgent business that must be discussed with Director Fury immediately," he said, turning back to the other man, now lounging behind his desk with his rough fingertips pressed together.

Tony tried to cover a laugh with a cough, failing miserably. "Business. Right. Is that what the Asgardian kids are calling it nowadays?"

Both men glared at him as if they wanted to disembowel him piece by piece and burn the pieces separately.

Tony's jesting tone faded along with the mockery on his face, and he took a step inside. He pulled on the sleeves of his black sports jacket, his eyes running over both of them. "Okay. What kind of business is it? If you want to see your girlfriend, I'm sure I can fly you over to New Mexico if Fury's, y'know, occupied." At this, he almost waggled his eyebrows at Fury again, but thought the better of it at the absolutely stony look on the man's face. "Tough crowd…" he muttered, helping himself to a chair in the corner. "Well, don't mind me. I've only got a press conference in Fresno in two hours that I'm sure I can miss."

Thor looked thoroughly confused for a moment before taking Tony at his word and turning back to Fury. The question, unfinished as it might have been, still hung in the air between them like a dead rat in the middle of the table, stinking of accusation.

Fury looked exasperated for a moment before leaning back in his chair. "Look, I haven't sent anyone to Asgard. Hell, I don't think I _could_ send anyone to Asgard. Trust me, if I could, the first thing that would happen would be that your girlfriend would magic herself over there. Why would we want to have tea and cookies with the bastard who destroyed New York?" he asked, his voice growing angrier as he slammed his hands down on the desk, a towering stack of papers quivering at the impact.

Thor looked taken aback for a moment. "But Heimdall _saw_ a human, previously shielded, enter his quarters," he protested, confusion flashing in his eyes.

Tony raised his hand. "If I'm allowed to talk now…"

Fury sighed, but motioned to the billionaire, his focus shifting to the man in the corner.

"So, this is about Loki, right? I mean, unless there's some other whiny teenage girl with daddy issues and delusions of grandeur in Asgard," he paused, glancing at the hammer warily for a moment before he hastily added, "No offence, Thor."

Thor narrowed his eyes, suddenly brandishing the hammer at Tony. "My brother is _mad, _yes, but not this… 'whiny teenage girl' that you have insinuated, man of iron," Thor began defensively.

Tony cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, clearly ignoring the threat. "Geez, never mind. You totally missed the awesome double meaning of that. Anyway, if a human visited him, it would have to be someone with special powers, right? Well, SHIELD doesn't have tabs on _everyone_ with special powers. So it could very well be an independent person with a grudge. Or an overdeveloped sense of honor. Or schitzophrenia." He sighed, then finally stood up. "Just my two cents."

Fury raised his eyebrows. "Were you just _helpful_, Stark? Who bribed you? If you're playing nice, then I know something bigger and badder is probably up your sleeve." The man, almost absent-mindedly, pulled the files that Tony had attempted to pick up out of his hands and put them on the top of the dangerously teetering pile while considering the implications of Tony's statement. An independent person definitely could have done this – but something as big as a transfer, without even setting off SHIELD's radar?

Something else that made no sense. Great. But… His mind began to connect dots, and his expression changed as something changed.

"I'm ignoring that comment," Tony said, pretending to be injured. He most likely would have continued if his phone hadn't gone off, with the face of the one person he probably feared on the front of it. Playing nonchalant, he pulled it out of his pocket and held it to his ear. "Hey, Pep! What's shakin'?" There was silence for a few moments before he glanced at Fury. "Of course I'm on my way to Fresno! I wasn't considering skipping. Really." He edged out the door. "No, definitely not. I'll get over as fast as possible. Wait, it starts at three? You said four!" Tony paused, covered the speaker with a hand, and looked at Fury, mouthing 'bye, just text me,' before half-running down the hallway. "I'll get there as fast as possible. I won't be late! I mean, not, you know, significantly late. Okay, I'll be in time for the drinks afterwards?"

Thor's brow wrinkled as he finally settled down in a chair to think. "We did not consider that option," he said finally. "I was under the impression that SHIELD monitors all of the mortals with powers beyond the expected."

Fury barked out a laugh. "Hell no. I wish we did. It would make _my_ job a ton easier." He paused, looking at the man's face for a moment. "But I promise you, we will find the culprit to this issue. If someone has the ability to, uh, what did you call it?" Fury asked, glancing at Thor for a moment.

"Pass between realms," Thor provided helpfully.

"Pass between realms, fall down the rabbit hole, fly over the damn rainbow – whatever," he snapped, "Then we want to know about it. We can't be having loose cannons just jumping wherever they want to. We'll start looking. Can you tell me anything else?"

Thor sighed. "That was much of the strangeness of the event," he said, attempting to be reasonable. "Even though Heimdall could sense that the visitor was human… and mortal," he said, setting his hammer down on the floor and bracing his fists against his thighs as he thought, "He could not see any specifics about the visitor. He could not hear their conversation, even though Heimdall hears all as well as sees all on Asgard."

Fury's excitement grew. This was the thing he had been waiting for – a lead. Even if there wasn't any evidence that this incident was connected to the rest of the strange things that had been surrounding SHIELD, his gut told him that this was the same source. And his gut was rarely wrong. Whatever this person, this… force was, it had not had sufficient knowledge of Asgard to avoid even slight detection by Heimdall. They had made a mistake.

One he would exploit.

Thor paused. "Well, Heimdall did see one aspect, but I sincerely doubt that it will aid your search." The man averted his eyes, then leaned on Fury's cracked desk with one hand. "The visitor was eating a bag of some Midgardian vegetable, and when he finished it, his visit finished as well, as if the vegetable was some sort of time-table for the visit."

"Well, that's clear as _mud,"_ Fury said, a headache beginning already. It was almost nothing. Could he even work with this? Still, it didn't curb the excitement. "You're telling me that somewhere on _my_ planet, there's someone who has the power of teleportation through _vegetables?_" Fury stood up and pressed the button that would activate the comm unit in his ear. "Agent Hill, start a search. For someone on the planet who is human and can teleport… using vegetables." He groaned. "Yes, I know it's vague. Apperantly, a human with those traits was seen visiting Loki. So find him. Or her. Actually, no. Put Hawkeye on it." He sighed, snapping the comm unit off. "Was there anything else you wanted, Thor?

Thor paused, and then shook his head. "I will stay to aid in your search," he stated, standing up again.

Fury half-laughed. "Where, in New Mexico? You're not going to be any help unless you get me more concrete facts. Not to mention that you're about as subtle as a tank. Now get the hell_ out_ of my office so I can call someone to fix my ceiling." He touched a screen, already tapping into the situation.

Thor looked slightly lost for a moment before dipping his head toward the other man, turning, and striding out of the office. His scarlet cape caught on an edge of debris as he politely nodded to the still-stunned secretary and used his point-of-entry as a convenient exit. Perhaps he would take Tony up on his offer…

When the room was empty, the secretary shakily pushed his glasses further up his face before quietly opening up his email. Quickly choosing a name from the drop-down list, he ran a hand through his spiky blonde hair before simply typing one sentance.

_Prepare the fire extinguishers; the fire hazard is getting too dangerous._

Trevor hit the send button before completely wiping the traces of the email from existence before sitting back in his chair, trying to wipe the nervousness from his face. He was filing a complaint. Strangled by one would-be god, spying on the ultimate spy, and nearly squished by another god... There was no way he'd signed up for this. _I swear I'm going back to my job at the paper, _he thought. _This is getting ridiculous... _


	3. Neighborly Concern

"I will not go," a female voice said in clipped tones, her voice lilting with the tones of some vaguely unrecognizable accent. Her voice wafted through the open front door, speaking to someone in the hallway.

"You don't have a choice," came another voice, obviously American this time. "He's more stubborn than we would have thought. He's not weakened by his defeat at all. And… the officials are doing nothing to solve the problem." A slight noise, like the uncomfortable shifting from foot to foot, echoed through the paper-thin wall of the next-door apartment.

There was a sound not unlike a hiss, and then the slam of a door. "I have _served_ my time. Shall I be punished my entire life for a choice that was not mine?" came the female voice again, muffled by the closed door. "They have no right to pull me in now."

The man's was still clear, unhindered by another wall of door. "You are the only one with the… abilities to take care of this situation," the man said, his voice catching. "You know I can't do this without you!"

There was silence for a moment. "You have capacity, don't you?" she asked, her voice suddenly slightly less hostile through the door. "You weren't a terrible student when we were joined," something like frustrated curiosity danced through her words, curbing some of the poisonous anger in her voice.

"And I couldn't do it without you. You know they'll get you eventually, Lana. Just come peacefully." A soft echoing noise, as if the man had put his fist up on the door, revrebated through the hallway. "I was told that they'd go after… um… your job, next. If you know what I mean. Stop being-"

Steve Rogers rolled over in bed, trying to use his pillow to block out the fighting from the apartment next to his. They'd been at it for days – a man who he actually hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of would randomly show up and yell at the door for a few hours until the girl who lived next to him either threatened to "Call the Ego," which was, he supposed, some new, modern name for cops that he hadn't heard yet, or actually opened the door and beat him over the head with a broom handle.

He hadn't slept in days.

It had gone against all his instincts, not to help the girl with this somehow stalkerish situation. However, when she'd moved in three months ago, something about her threats to stab him with her stiletto if he ever called her "dame" again told him that she wouldn't want his help.

But still…

She obviously hadn't been able to get rid of him herself. And why hadn't she called the police on him yet? Was she afraid of him for some reason?

The thoughts had been running through his head for days on end – perhaps it wasn't only the shouting that deprived him of sleep.

Suddenly Steve realized that they had been silent too long. "My _job_," came a terrified whisper through the door. "They wouldn't dare make a move there," she said, the fright and anger badly covered by nonchalance.

In a decision that had already been made, her rolled out of bed and ran a hand through his short-cropped blonde hair and pulled on a pair of jeans. He normally would have thrown on a shirt as well, but he only was heading out to deal with the man in the hallway.

He felt like running _back_ into the room when he stepped out to find his petite, cinnamon-haired neighbor slamming open the door to pin the man up against the tan wall of the hallway with the handle of her broom to his throat. She had managed to make his glasses crooked as well, and pressed the handle harder when his hands came up to straighten them.

"Uh… excuse me Lana… do you need any help?" he asked, awkwardly, desperately wishing he had just thrown on a shirt.

Both had stopped to stare at him, frozen in what almost looked like fear. There was a flash of light that had suddenly dimmed, like the hallway light had flared.

The girl pulled back, averting her eyes quickly. "I'm so sorry, Steve," she said, that accent quietly dancing through her words again. "I really have been trying to get rid of him for a few days…" she paused, glancing at him. "Did _he_ wake you?" she glared at him again, somehow looking menacing even if she was only wielding a broom.

"Oh, uh, Lana, I didn't know you had a boyfriend," said the perpetrator, his blonde hair sticking up at odd angles, as if gel were fading out of it. He kept averting his eyes, making as if to never give the other man a good view of his face.

There was something markedly familiar about the man, and Rogers stepped closer. "Look at me," he said commandingly. "Are you man enough to even look me in the eye?" Steve crossed his arms across his bare chest, still not quite hiding his discomfort at his partial nakedness.

"No sir! I mean, uh, yes? No!" the man stuttered over the words, his eyes meeting Rogers' for a moment behind the squared lenses of his glasses.

Steve narrowed his eyes, searching for the source of recognition –

"As entertaining as this has been," said the Lana, interrupting the stand-off, "I think my boyfriend and I were about to have a conversation." She tossed Steve a pleading glance for cooperation before glaring at the intruder. "Get out of my apartment building, Trevor. And tell them that _he _was right," she snapped. "If she wants me to actually listen, don't send the _nursing babes_."

Trevor's eyes widened, but Lana's smile was absolutely poisonous as she sent the words that finally pushed him down the hallway. The smile seemed too at home on her face – not built of enjoyment in pain, but of a deep-seated bitterness. "It's insulting."

The girl turned back to Steve, tugging on the ends of her hair awkwardly for a moment. "I'm so sorry about that. Trav's an old… um, coworker, and he's really persistent about everything. He used to be a reporter." She shrugged, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

However, Steve had _not_ slept through enough of their… conversations to know that something more was going on than simply a stalker ex-boyfriend. He might have slept seventy years on ice, but there were quite a few things that never changed. He raised an eyebrow. "What kind of trouble are you in?" he asked, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible. "If it's something I can help with –" he stopped, suddenly taking in her appearance. Oh. She was in pajamas. He honestly hadn't looked past the broom before.

Lana seemed to think nothing of it, though, and that familiar, stubborn look that he'd seen far too many times on the face of the intractable Tony Stark crossed her face. "I'll take care of it, thank you. Oh, and thank you for covering for me there. I owe you one." She stuck out her hand, obviously wanting an end to the entire situation.

Steve took it and made as if to kiss it before quickly remembering that he wasn't supposed to do that. "So your name is Lana, huh? You never did tell me," he said, after awkwardly shaking her hand, dropping it too quickly, and making a half-turn back to his door.

"I'm sorry," she said smoothly. "I'm Lana Goldenberg."

Steve made as if to make another comment, but before he could work up another sound, the door was closed and his mouth was half-open, as if talking to open air.

* * *

Behind the door, Lana's broom fell from her shaking hands as she stumbled in, grasping at the counter. Her breath was catching in strange places, and suddenly it was all too fast. Her hands blindly grabbed for the paper bag on the counter that was kept for such purposes, but her brain was reeling out of control with such a lack of oxygen. Her fingertips caught the edge of the bag, but her balance left her as she collapsed onto the floor, hyperventilating.

She couldn't protect all of them. There wasn't enough of her to protect the kids that she taught. If they came to the kindergarten while she was teaching, and something happened… she would never forgive herself. Or them.

Stolen. Everything stolen. They already had her soul. Did they want her life, too?

It was over. Her freedom, her breath of fresh air._ I have to go back_, her brain churned out in the last moment of consciousness before her mind slipped away into sweet, unconscious oblivion.


	4. In Which: Clint Needs a Drink

_**A/N: Okay, you didn't know this, but most of the plot of this story was created listening to a meshugga mixture of Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Nightwish, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This chapter has a… musical bit in it. If you want a more vivid representation, go ahead and listen to "To Life" from Fiddler, and that's the song I imagine being used in this section.**_

_**DISCLAIMER PLEASE READ: I am going to start making a lot of references to the Roma (gypsy) culture in my story. While some of it may be pulled from fact, please note that most of this story is fiction, and I'm making a lot of it up. I would do the same to any culture that I was fantasy-ifying. **_

_When Lana awoke to sunlight the next morning, she was only vaguely surprised to find herself on the cold white tile of her kitchen floor. The night flooded back to her as she pushed herself up, her head pounding at the sudden change of position. _

_She slowly twisted her neck as if to carefully work out a crick, but no crack came and she dropped her head with a frustrated sigh. Pain throbbed in her neck where she'd tried to crack it, and her hand came up without a command to try to rub the pain away._

_ Her breath began to speed again at the face of what was to come, but it was no longer the time-of-darkness that brought on fear. Confidence came with the day, and only when she could relax would she panic like that._

_ How foolish to think that she would be able to relax. She was a courier, after all. Not simply a Courier, but a Guardian, as well. It was a first-class recipe for never being able to hide._

_ One thing was for certain. If she was under attack, then it wouldn't be long until they tried _him. _Even if they managed to draw her in, they would use her as bait to grab the other risk. She was being blackmailed already, through the threat of her students. But him… his stakes were far higher._

_ She would have to warn him somehow, before the stakes got high enough for them to actually find out where he was hiding. She pulled out her phone and paused, quietly deleting a few numbers off her system that she didn't want them to have. For all their frightening efficiency, the area of deep-system technology had never been their forte. They would find anything she sent – but not what she deleted._

_ There was darkness in her eyes as she finally looked into the mirror, coming face-to-face with the person who was truly being recruited. Those eyes, as they stared back at her, seemed as if they belonged to someone else. And the shadow, the shadow of another, long-suppressed self, hung behind her like an eagle waiting to strike… Boiling hatred and menace without regret lingered behind her – like a specter waiting to grab at her soul._

_ Lana tore herself away from the reflection, blinking her eyes several times. She needed to make a phone call. She couldn't be that self anymore, no matter how much they pushed her. _

_ How long did she have before they acted? The disjointedness of the organization had always lent itself to a lack of speed, so perhaps she had a week before they made any moves to force her. She bent down, splashing water over her face and reaching for the phone charging just outside the door with wet hands. _

_ "Hello? This is Miss Goldenberg. I'm out sick for a few days…" Lana coughed for good measure, lying easily. "I should be back on Wednesday or Thursday – The doctor told me that this would only last for a few days."_

_ There were murmurs of accusation on the phone, of complaining, and then of compliance._

_ Where did he say he would be again? This wasn't a message to be trusted to the phone. She turned and stalked back to her room, throwing a change of clothes into a backpack and pulling another on, still half-asleep. Florida. He said he would be in Florida… But Florida was a big state. She'd have to locate him another way, quickly._

* * *

**Three Days Later**

* * *

Clint Barton had one aim and one aim only at the moment – the nearest bar.

It had been a hard mission.

He wasn't coming up with anything on the weird wild-goose chase that Fury had sent him on. Why didn't he just send Tasha? There was nothing to go on – except "human", and the fact that they teleported. That excluded, what, Loki? Thor? Well, two down, six million to go. Which _might_ have explained why he had absolutely no trace whatsoever of this strange phenomenon. He'd been following something that halfway resembled a lead when he realized that most of the northern hemisphere was still in the depths of winter, and any place with a large access to vegetables would have to be sunny year-round. At the moment, he was in Florida. He was about ready to throw in the towel and go to Puerto Rico just to piss off Fury and hit the beach, but that probably wasn't an option. However, at the moment, he was in Miami.

Ergo, a drink.

"Try not to look so frustrated," came a friendly, deep voice from his elbow – Eddie Mendoza, the absolutely giant fellow agent who was his customary drinking buddy and who had been aiding him on the case. He didn't know most of the details, but he was pretty handy in talking his way into places that Clint would have just blown up. "I know a close place."

Clint grunted, clambering into the passenger seat of the car. "We picking up Tasha?" he asked, leaning his head back on the headrest and massaging his temples with one hand. "She'll be pissed if she knows that we went off drinking vodka without her, even if she's in Jacksonville. I'm sure she could be here in three hours."

Eddie laughed, a bright smile contrasting brilliantly with his dark skin. "She didn't want to come. It's just us tonight!" He started the car, the keys looking like baby toys in his huge hands. "I know a place, but do you have any preferences?"

Miami was generally a good place to get a drink, but Clint had honestly never been down enough to know any other names but the Hard Rock casino. "Don't know. Don't care. Actually, if you could find something without pounding music…" he blinked rapidly, trying to assuage the stress-related headache. "And someplace that sells really strong vodka. Or rum. They've got to have rum in Miami, right?"

Eddie rolled his eyes. He'd been stationed down in the city long enough to have pegged most of the best places, but his friend seemed to have forgotten that Miami was mostly Hispanic. "I don't know if I can find someplace without music, Clint. It's kind of a staple here."

Clint sat up, re-arranging his features into something where weakness would not be detected. "You sure?" he asked, mentally bracing himself.

Eddie nodded, then stopped. "Well, there is one place…" he said, almost musing. "It's weird though."

Clint flashed a brief half-smile at the other man. "They've got rum?" he asked, a spark of hope crossing his face.

"Yes," Eddie responded, a slight look of worry inexplicably crossing his face.

There was no response from Clint – Eddie had known since they'd been on that fateful mission to Budapest that the famous sharpshooter was a man of very few words and a wry sense of humor. "You're starting to sound like Stark," he joked, raising his eyebrows at the shorter agent as they pulled up to a small bar with low lights and a frankly seedy atmosphere.

Clint snorted, staring out the window at the completely flat horizon, broken here and there by a palm tree or house. "The man's a damn alcoholic. I just need to go and get drunk every once in a while when Fury's taking out his anger issues on me. He's been on edge ever since the attack on New York cooled down." He leaned back, raising an eyebrow skeptically at the sight of the place they had just pulled up to.

The bar looked insanely seedy on the outside, with concrete walls painted a dingy shade of green, bars over the windows, and a distinctively Floridian flattened roof. Much to Clint's relief, though, there was no loud music streaming out the doors and windows. "As long as they've got alcohol…" he muttered, before following his tall companion through the door.

Inside, though, it wasn't half-bad. A long bar, against the wall, with a wooden counter and rickety stools as the main feature. The rest of the narrow room was dotted with two or three small tables, the opposite wall lined with three or four booths. There weren't any serious dinners going on – they probably didn't sell them. The music was soft, and only one TV, muted, played a soccer game in the corner of the bar.

The bartender recognized Eddie, raising a hand. "Eddie!" The rest of the conversation followed in a language that Clint didn't make heads or tails of, but it suddenly switched to English with a nearly unnoticeable eye-signal from Eddie. Clint would have never caught it, if he hadn't been so busy trying to see how Eddie would respond.

"Sorry, Martinez," Eddie said with a grin, settling down at the bar. "Can we get something with rum in it? Stronger for my friend here."

The man grinned, almost falsely, and glanced around at the other clientele. "My choice?" he asked, an odd accent dancing through his words.

Clint watched the nonverbal dance between the two that went somehow deeper than a bartender and a regular customer. Eddie would smile, the bartender would glance at the group of oddly dressed men behind them, half-stiffen, then relax again. Eddie would restrain himself from turning around, raise a dark eyebrow, and tilt a head to the side, as if to ask a question.

It was strange enough, but Clint was thirsty and a bit tired of being left out of the conversation. "So what language was that earlier?" Clint said, getting straight to the point. He could do subterfuge if he had to, but why dance around a point with a friend? They might as well get it over with so they could move on and get drunk.

Eddie almost froze, but there was a forced relaxation of features. "Oh, that was Romani," he responded, taking the drink that had been set in front of him. "I… used it a lot in Italy last year."

Clint was quietly stunned, and sipped his drink in amazement. "How'd you manage that?" he asked, downing another gulp of the alcohol. He would need to be drunk to believe this.

The tall black man shrugged. "I needed to disappear. Most authorities don't look at the Gypsies twice, if they can." The usually verbose man was actually getting Clint Barton-like answers, only saying what he thought he could get away with. "If we're trading secrets," he finally said, draining to the bottom of the cup before making eye contact with the bartender and motioning for another drink. "Then maybe you could give me a hint as to what we're looking for!" He wasn't quite tipsy yet, but the warmth of the alcohol had sunk down into the pit of his stomach, loosening the "agent face". Eddie clapped Clint on the back, nearly knocking the shorter man off his stool and rearranging his bulk more securely on back on his own. "I might be more help that way," he said seriously, inspecting the amber liquid in his new cup.

Clint was still reeling at the casual way that the man had said that he had just "stayed" with the gypsies, the Roma, for a while. The nomad culture was notorious for not letting anyone into their family circles, to the point where very few even knew their customs, their citizenships, or even their language. It was one of the very few people groups that SHIELD had very few agents in – even though a few of their agents were of Roma descent, usually kicked out and even shunned when they decided to join the government. And _even they_ were very tight-lipped about the places they came from, revealing very few things outside of common knowledge beyond harmless things. Clint had always brushed it off as cultural, but it was more than strange to have a culture of secrets that even SHIELD couldn't crack.

Eddie cleared his throat. "I mean, if you'd rather not tell me, then…" he sighed and sipped at his drink again.

Clint blinked, the dark and quiet of the room having mostly assuaged his Fury-related headache. "Oh, I'm really not supposed to tell you, but we're looking for a ghost," he said, tossing back the last of his drink. "I mean, not a real one," he said, at the startled look on the other agent's face. "But apparently Fury expects me to find one person, or a group of people, based off the fact that they'd need year-round access to _vegetables._" He slammed down the cup, pushing it back for another. "It's ridiculous."

Eddie desperately hoped that Clint was tipsy enough not to notice the sudden shock cross his face. He downed another gulp of the rum, then put it down and ordered a few shots of vodka.

He'd need something stronger to digest this news that Fury was looking for _them_.

Clint squinted at Eddie's face. "What's up?" he asked, obviously having noticed the shock… and the vodka. "Tasha will be angry with us," he said with a laugh. "But does that ring a bell for you?"

Eddie struggled with the right words for a moment before the bartender suddenly looked at the clock, a shocked look suddenly crossing his round face. Forgetting courtesy, he babbled at Eddie for a moment in Romani, too late, a moment before another group swaggered through the door.

Suddenly, a thought struck Clint. "Are you Roma, Eddie?" he asked suddenly, squinting at the man.

Eddie turned his head away to look at the group of men that had just waltzed in. "I was adopted by them, yeah."

"But you're Brazilian, right?" Clint asked conversationally, stealing one of Eddie's vodka shots.

"There are Roma in Brazil," Eddie said in a conversation-ending tone. It was obvious that he didn't want to explore this Romani topic.

Before, there had been a soft murmur of voices as a few men discussed different things across the room in hushed tones, but complete silence swept across the room as the two groups of men eyed each other.

Eddie swore in Romani, sliding off the stool before grabbing Clint by the arm, hauling the smaller agent off his stool. "Clint, if this turns nasty, get out the door as fast as possible. Don't even think about pulling out the gun." The big man wasn't one to move so quickly, but he was positively light on his feet as he edged toward the door.

Clint gave him a questioning look, but let sleeping dogs lie. This was like the comment about the Romani – odd for him. If Eddie could explain something, he would. In so much detail that Clint would be aching to shoot him just so that the unnecessary information would stop. But he was purposefully not explaining this.

There was a sudden cry from the other side of the room and both men, inebriated as they were, both spun and froze, ready to run. However, it seemed to be a cry of celebration. Two of the men promptly ordered free drinks for the entire establishment, and began to sing back-and-forth some kind of… drinking song? It sounded almost… traditional, though.

Whatever little blood was left in Eddie's face drained. "We have to go." Stupid, stupid, stupid… He downed another shot of vodka, the tiny little glass a mere shard of sparkle in the man's huge fingers. This was far too close. The bartender's shaking hands wrapped and unwrapped around the towel he had been using to wipe the bar, and he stood as if he were going to duck underneath it at any moment.

In the next moment, several things happened all at once in what seemed to be slow motion. The first group of men was singing together, a song of celebration – apparently some men had just agreed to the marriage of the first man's daughter. Odd. Did that still happen in this day and age?

The second group of men looked slightly less hostile but more mobile, shifting in their seats and glancing at the first group of men.

The music in the bar mysteriously changed, matching to the beat of the song that the men were singing, with cries of what sounded to be "congratulations" in Romani. Dancing began, and the music grew louder.

The second group of men stood at a break in the singing, and sang another song. The two groups seemed to be barely dancing around each other in terms of hatred, but there was a tenuous goodwill in the room that seemed as if it would shatter in a moment.

However, when one of the men stretched his hand across to the supposed father of the bride, Eddie stopped.

And stared.

There was a split second where he considered shoving Clint outside before the two groups of highly prejudiced people jumped on each other and tore each other to shreds, when the man from the other group whipped out a handkerchief, holding onto the fragile piece.

"How drunk _are_ they?" mused Eddie, leaning back against the wall.

Clint made a decision in that moment. If Eddie's tapping feet were any sign, then he was about to jump in as well, to join the very drunk men in their dancing celebration.

It was that moment, though, when the vodka really hit his system, and the world gained dancing edges. Whatever decision he might have made got shoved to the side in the sudden drunken wonder he had at the event. He grabbed at the edge of Eddie's sleeve, "So… Eddie…" he drawled, sinking down into one of the chairs by the edge.

Eddie snapped out of his daze, blurred by the drinks, and sat down beside him. "This is so weird," he confided in Clint seriously, swinging his arm out wide to encompass the singing-dancing group.

Clint nodded. "I know, right? It's like a musical. In real life." He almost giggled at that, but Clint didn't giggle. Okay, maybe a little bit.

Eddie nodded. "I mean, the Campers and the Couriers usually _hate_ each other," he said, signing for another couple of shots of vodka. "And its right before the Couriers start off again. I'm surprised they're even _risking…_" he downed his shot, wincing at the strong taste. "Contact."

None of that made any sense to Clint, but he was sure that none of it made much sense anyway. "Like, like… dude. What is IN that rum, man?"

It struck Clint as a surprise, then, when after they had made their exit, that Eddie was suddenly miserable as they tried to stumble into the car – they'd sleep there until morning.

When the car door opened, though, Clint was halfway surprised to find a small figure slumped, sleeping, over the driver's seat with a plastic bag of carrots in her hand. At the sight of the two, she rubbed her eyes and took a second look. "Oh, he drank too much again, didn't he…" came a yawning female voice from inside. "He'll be worse in the morning. Let me get you boys back to your… 'partment." She yawned again, climbing out of the car to pack the swaying Clint into the back seat and the still-mumbling Eddie into the front seat.

The last thing Clint remembered before passing out on the seat was, from his unique vantage point in the back seat, a moaning Eddie almost crying to a much smaller figure in a language different still than the one that Eddie had used in the bar – or perhaps it was the same one, but full of a tonal, sing-song emotionality that conveyed far more than words…

* * *

Eddie groaned, his hangover definitely roaring at full force as he rolled out of bed with all his clothes on. What had _happened _last night? And, as a matter of principle, where was he? He was fairly sure they'd gone back to the hotel last night… Someone had driven them? He vaguely remembered giving convoluted directions last night to a girl… had he called a driver?

How had they gotten into his car? That wasn't creepy at all, a strange person sneaking into a government agent's car… Oh, his headache was too bad for this. "Tea," he croaked out, trying to feel his way to the kitchen without opening his eyes to the brain-scarring light. He did manage to knock a few things over, but nothing _crashed_, so it couldn't be terrible.

He nearly ran into an equally bleary-eyed Clint who was standing and staring at the small figure curled up on the black leather couch in Eddie's apartment. _Lana?_ Eddie tried to put two and two together, but the oddness of the situation was too much for his head and he turned to the kitchen. "Tea?" he asked, walking full-on into the doorpost with a spectacular bang.

The noise, coupled with the accompanying cursing, was enough to wake up the uninvited guest. Under Clint's shell-shocked gaze, the girl stirred, and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her fists.

No matter how bad the hangover headache was, Clint was automatically in motion. "Who are you?" he said bluntly, shaking the girl awake and pulling her into a sitting position. His face was uncomfortably close to hers, but at this distance he could make out the exhaustion in her bloodshot eyes and just-woken-up confusion to be read in the shadowy lines of her face.

She was interesting, to be sure, but the least interesting thing was her actual appearance. She was short, but slightly bigger-boned and curvier than one would think a person of her height would be. She didn't give the impression of being _delicate_ or _solid_ so much as she did the impression of being _trim_. She didn't have much fat on her, but you got the feeling that she worked out – explainable. Her eyes were an unremarkable shade of brown, though her faintly curly ponytail was a pretty shade of auburn. She didn't have a speck of tan, and she seemed too pale for her skin tone, as if she were anemic. She had big hands for her size – still small in comparison to Clint's, but long fingers.

It was something else that caught his attention, though – her clothes looked _beyond_ slept-in, and there was a queer haunted look about her face, as if she hadn't really slept in a few days. Her faintly frizzy hair was pulled back, but you could still tell it was greasy. She seemed clean enough, but it didn't look like she'd made it to a shower in a couple of days. A pair of well-worn but well-taken-care-of leather fingerless gloves graced her hands, and were slightly incongruous with the rest of her jeans-and-sweatshirt attire

Running. From what?

The girl shook his hands off, leaning away from his burning scrutiny as she seemed to wake up a little. "I'm Lana," she said shortly.

Clint just stared at her, as if he hadn't expected to get an answer so quickly. "Clint."

"Nice to meet you," The-girl-who-was-called-Lana said, her queer honesty throwing him off. "Is Mendoza the one in the kitchen?" she asked, pulling herself to her feet and running her hands through her auburn hair. "'Course it is, no one swears like Mendoozle," she muttered, walking into the kitchen herself just in time to save the still-confused Eddie from pouring hot water all over his hand.

This woke her up completely, and she snatched the kettle from the much bigger man's hands, pouring the hot water herself.

Clint followed her into the kitchen, but was still dizzy enough himself to walk into the doorpost.

Handing Clint a mug himself, Lana steered both men over to the couch and sat them down with promises of food and bad daytime TV.

Eddie hardly seemed surprised by the visitor, which shocked Clint. His brain was crawling back to coherency, though, helped by the mug of dark tea in his hands. Coffee would have been better, but Eddie was notoriously against coffee. No coffee in this apartment.

"Eddie, who is she?" he finally asked, as the light buzz of caffeine set in and began chasing away the headache and nausea.

Eddie shrugged, the expression looking comical between the giant of a man and the small, demure cup of Earl Grey he was holding. "It's Lana. She does this," the man explained, sipping at his tea as if that was supposed to answer the question. "She never calls ahead."

Clint turned, forcing his aching eyes to focus on the man. "Do you remember what happened last night?" he asked. Even though he'd been completely drunk, some of the strange events of the last night were still carved into his brain. The dancing, the singing, the language… the girl asleep in Eddie's company car.

Eddie sighed. "I used to work with her. Well, against her. We were…" he searched for the appropriate words in his head before Lana interrupted with two plates of what looked like scrambled eggs and sliced tomatoes.

"We were in opposing gangs that worked for the same people," she said with a smile, as if the contradicting statement made Eddie's confusing statement any clearer. "We both found out, and ended up running away to different places." She frowned and settled on the arm of the couch with her own plate. "We've kept in touch."

Clint glared at her. "How did you get into the car?" he asked, taking a bite of the eggs. They weren't great, but food was food.

Lana shrugged, and Clint suddenly noticed that she had slung a backpack that had previously taken up residence on the end of the couch over her shoulder, as if she wanted it close at all times. "Broke in. I needed a place to crash, and I actually didn't know where Mendoozle was living."

There was something away she skipped around that comment that didn't make sense. Clint took another bite of the tasteless eggs as he pinned her down with his eyes. So she could find a person's car when they were out at a bar, but not their house, where they were most of the time? That didn't make any sense…

Eddie shot her a look that said, 'stop talking,' and she quickly stopped talking, suddenly far more interested in the eggs than she should have been for food that was just a shade shy of awful.

Clint frowned. There was something he was forgetting, some detail that he had forgotten… "And what was with the carrots?" he suddenly asked. A strange thing to remember, carrots.

Lana and Eddie froze mid-chew for an entire half-second before Lana nearly spit out her food and Eddie coughed to keep from choking his.

Definitely weird.

"I sort of…" Lana paused. "Hitchhiked down here. I brought a snack."

Clint looked at them both for a moment, his face completely impassive before he put the plate on the table and stood. "I'm taking a shower. You two obviously have something you don't want me to hear," he said acidly. He strode out of the room, every step purposeful. He almost-closed the door behind him, took a few more audible steps, then crept back silently behind the wall, leaning close to the opening in the door.

Lana let out a breath when he left the room. "I seriously thought…" she said for a moment, her eyes wandering after the door the archer had left slightly open. "Anyway, urgent," she said, meeting Eddie's eyes. "I don't have much time."

Eddie looked at her. "Ever heard of phones?"

"I couldn't call," Lana said, putting down the plate. "But this_ is_ urgent." Her long fingers fiddled with the strap of her backpack. "I've been waiting for you to speak Romani for days," she accused. "You could have at _least_ told me where you were living. You _know _that locating someone via the interference nets is a pain."

"Lana," Eddie said, reaching over to grasp her hand, his big hand drowning her small one. "You need to be more careful. You don't understand, that man –"

Lana cut him off with a wilting glare. "They're coming after us."

That single sentence shocked him into silence.

"But… why now?" he whispered, his deep brown eyes searching the air behind her for a moment, as if he could spot a specter there.

"They've got their teeth in an idea," Lana's voice was bitter, sweeping across the words with pain. "They're going after the brother of the alien who helped save New York from the Chitauri. Loki, I think his name was?"

The color drained from Eddie's face. "Loki was the one behind the attacks," he whispered.

Lana looked back at him sharply. "The news forgot to mention that."

"SHIELD does good cover-ups," Eddie rationalized, before focusing back in on the moment. "Why do they want him?"

"They're throwing around some BS story about there being someone else behind the attack," said Lana through gritted teeth, pushing her hair out of her face before pulling her hand out of his. "But it's obviously something else." She paused, then looked back at him.

Then turned away.

Eddie stopped, paused, then got up, putting a hand on her shoulder. His hand dwarfed her shoulder, and she suddenly had the overwhelming feeling of being a toy doll to be broken at the whim of a god.

"I think they are going after the Couriers," she whispered, not turning around to look at him. The same accent that had teased the bartender's voice suddenly began to race through hers, as if she'd been suppressing it for a while and only remembered now that she could relax and use her own voice. "They are going to the godforsaken Realm Eternal, and they want Loki to help them either strand the Couriers or blow the transportation wide open. They've always been jealous of the Courier's abilities."

Clint sat outside the door, his breath baited. He was right. Once he'd left, they'd started to talk. Hazy drunken details from last night about… Campers. And Couriers. That hated each other.

"But… Lana… You're a courier, aren't you?" Eddie's deep voice echoed a little more than Lana would like, and she winced.

"You know I was taken because of…" she stopped, then fiddled with something about her neck.

Eddie's eyebrows would have touched the celing if they went any higher. "You were taken? I didn't know that."

Lana was silent.

Eddie made as if to say something else, but the enormity of what she had said suddenly hit him. _They_ had taken her, simply because she was chosen to be a Guardian. Couriers were rarely chosen, but to outright steal a child… _It is the rule,_ he supposed, _But it hasn't been used for thousands of years._

"They've already found me," Lana said, breaking the silence. "They sent Trevor, but it's only a matter of time…" she trailed off, suddenly looking at the door. "Did the shower turn on?" she asked, her voice suddenly sounding small.

Eddie's head snapped around to look at the door as well, cracked open. "No. I don't think it did…"

Clint froze, his heartbeat suddenly speeding up. _Wait, why am I afraid? Why is my gut telling me to run? Eddie is a fellow agent._ His instinct, though, was telling him something far different…

_His loyalties are somewhere else._

Lana pushed open the door to find Clint halfway out the window. "Wait!" she called, reaching out her hand. Pulling off a fingerless glove, she grabbed at thin air with that hand, spreading her fingers apart to pinch a piece of… something that suddenly materialized with a trilling sound, like a violin. The violin-sound climbed as she made a wrapping motion with her hand and pulled.

Clint felt something freezing and tight coil around his ankle, and, with a singing whine, drag him back through the window.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, chasing the tendril away from his ankle with another trilling violin sound as it faded back into the air. "I didn't mean to burn you… I thought you were wearing socks." She hastily blew on what looked to be a light case of frostbite and Clint watched, in something akin to horror, as another light-tendril played about the wound, singing a fluty song this time. The pain lessened to a soft throb, but the wound only became slightly lighter. He tried not to focus too much on the pain, his blue eyes instead catching the palm of her ungloved hand. He wrapped a hand around her wrist like a vise, flipping her hand over quickly before she could react. A pale blue intricate web of lines created a complicated circle of vines in the center of her palm, faintly glowing with energy. As he watched, softly glowing lines that followed the bone structure of her hand faded into the circle or into the air, drifting a mere hairsbreadth above her skin.

Eddie stood in the door, a completely different look of shock on his face. "Lana!" he hissed. "I was trying to tell you earlier…" he switched to that other language, his anger filling the room with that horrible tension that Clint had only ever experienced when he was on mission with Eddie. That guy had a threatening aura like no one else.

Lana jerked her hand back and watched Clint with wary eyes. "Let's not do that," she responded in English. "He won't understand half of it anyway."

Clint slammed his fist into the wooden floor, shocking both of them into silence. "Not even half? Well, you two have one minute to explain what's _fucking_ going on before I call Fury to inform him I've put bullets into the brains of a promising agent and an unidentified civilian." No time for delicate threats, now that they knew he had listened to the conversation.

Somewhere in Lana's condescending speech, he'd made his way to his feet and pulled out a gun, which he leveled on Lana. "I don't know what kind of power _she_ has, but it won't be enough to stop a bullet. Even if it was, she's not faster than _me_."

Lana looked away, then up at Eddie. Both of them exchanged a long look. Eddie sighed, ran a big hand over his curly, close-shaven hair and took a step towards Clint across the wooden floor. "Clint –"

Clint pulled out another gun, this one leveled steadily at Eddie. "Answers."

Lana casually pulled out a carrot. "I'll leave this one to you, Mendoozle," she said quietly, glancing up at him. "I've got to hide out for a few days, and I can't be here much longer. They can't think this is anything but another hide-out jump."

Eddie sighed. "You're a terrible person," he said seriously, not joking in the slightest. He didn't stop her, though, instead nodding to Clint. "You'll want to watch this."

Clint responded by pointing both of the guns at Lana, he paused, though, with a lingering glance at his _former_ friend's eyes. The big man hadn't ever been one to lie before…

With that, she stuffed the entire baby carrot into her mouth as Clint took off the safety and aimed for the center of her forehead. Quickly swallowing, she ducked and faded out of existence just as Clint fired the gun. A few strands of her hair floated to the floor where they'd been sliced off by the bullet, but she herself had vanished. The bullet buried itself in the blue concrete wall with another _crack_.

Without missing a beat, Clint leveled the gun at Eddie. "Thirty seconds," he said calmly. "I'm seriously tired of being out of the loop."

Eddie raised his hands. "Can we at least finish breakfast first?" he said humbly, moving his rather large bulk towards the door. "I have the feeling that we're both going to need food in our stomachs before I finish this explanation."


End file.
